This is the Beat of My Heart
by premeditated
Summary: A series of stories, some connected and others not, but all told in a single sentence because the shortest tales are sometimes the most complete. Code Geass one sentence challenge, each set focusing on a different relationship. Set Beta: the witch and the warlock.
1. ALPHA SET: Lelouch & Suzaku

_**ALPHA SET:**_** Lelouch & Suzaku**

**#01 – comfort**

He sees the empty hands of the emperor, the soon-to-be-messiah with nothing but the murky depths of an ocean to his name, and forces his own to curl into fists.

**#02 – kiss**

He kisses the cheek of a boy who is just like him; the sun-sweet lips of a partner and the bitter, moon-bleached ones of a rival; the hand of a scorned god who leapt from the grace of the stars; but not an inch of the lover that saw his heart encased in glass.

**#03 – soft**

His eyes were kinder and gentler than any others in the world—before they saw his friend behind the mask of violence and cowardice that eventually hardened his expression with rigid, unforgiving certainty.

**#04 – pain**

"I just wanted a world without suffering."

**#05 – potatoes**

Lelouch didn't actually believe Milly when she ran in yelling about Suzaku destroying the kitchen by making mashed potatoes for the banquet (it was _mashed potatoes_) so when he finally walked in and caught the startled gaze of his friend, splayed out in a heap on the floor, he was too amazed to laugh—for a few seconds, that is.

**#06 – rain**

Lelouch stalked into the little corner coffee shop, soaking wet and scowling like an angry cat, but when the tall and kinda handsome guy behind the counter started covering his mouth to hide his laughter ("Can I get you something warm to drink, or maybe a towel, sir?") he suddenly felt like smiling.

**#07 – chocolate**

"I could've sworn you detest chocolate chip muffins," C.C. commented idly as Lelouch swept by with nothing more than a hum, clutching his fourth one that week and pretending not to think about the wide smile and crinkling eyes of the guy behind the counter.

**#08 – happiness**

C.C. will drop by sometimes, appear out of nowhere and vanish just as quickly, and Suzaku will finally take off his mask and lay his head in her lap, allowing himself a small and rusty smile while she runs her hand through his hair and neither one even tries to pretend that they aren't thinking of him.

**#09 – telephone**

"If he hasn't called in the last two hours you've been sitting here, what makes you think he will during the one minute I need to order pizza?" C.C. asked, smirking as Lelouch got up and swept from the room much too late to hide his blush.

**#10 – ears**

"I don't have time to remember a hat," Lelouch declares for the fourth day in a row, so Suzaku just grins and rubs the cold out of his ears, pulling him in for a kiss that warms him right down to his toes.

**#11 – names**

He lay in his new bed every night and stared at the ceiling that was too grand for someone like him, his mind insisting, pleading with itself that this was all built on Zero's demise as well as his own, but his lips whispered the truth into the dark: _Lelouch._

**#12 – sensual**

Lelouch didn't _have_ to make the Knight of Zero outfit so tight, but, well…

**#13 – death**

"I will bear this Geass."

**#14 – sex**

They went farther and farther every night as the final hour approached, giving more and seeing more and trusting each other with every last inch of their bodies, but on that last night before the new dawn, when the need for stability finally gave way to that romantic glitter of vulnerability, neither one even uttered a word.

**#15 – touch**

He went back to school and re-introduced himself with an empty chest, and whenever he saw Lelouch he almost ran forward and grabbed his hand, kissed his neck, and held him close enough to take his pulse and restart his own, but then he'd notice the way his smile always reached his eyes and he'd have to turn away if he didn't want to throw up.

**#16 – weakness**

"What do you think?" Suzaku asked, smiling as he straightened the red pleated skirt of his _seifuku_.

**#17 – tears**

He doesn't like to cry now that he's supposed to be the protector of the new world's hope, but sometimes he just has to let go of everything he wants—let the spasms rack his body, the salt burn his lips, and his lungs waste away as he gasps for clean air that doesn't exist—and feel enough on his own for the millions and millions of hearts whose devotion Lelouch never saw.

**#18 – speed**

Gym class was mandatory, of course, and so was running the mile—but Suzaku didn't _have_ to stay back and jog the entire thing at Lelouch's side, so he made an effort to at least move faster than a walk whenever he could and keep the muttered insults to the bare minimum; not like he could breathe anyway, _unlike Suzaku_, that annoying jock—

**#19 – wind**

Suzaku likes to climb to the top of the tallest hill he can find whenever he has a moment to spare, and when the wind picks up around him and blows the flowery taste of twilight into his lungs, he closes his eyes and imagines a slender pair of arms wrapping themselves around his waist from behind because he knows that he's never watching stars come out alone.

**#20 – freedom**

"I will destroy the world for your sake!"

**#21 – life**

"I will destroy you for the world's sake!"

**#22 – jealousy**

So maybe Lelouch wasn't exactly _proud_ of that time he went up and ordered a third cup of coffee because he didn't like the way Mr. Blond Hair, Blue Eyes, Perfect Smile was flirting with the guy behind the counter, but the second time he did it was when he got his number so he bragged to C.C. about _that_ one.

**#23 – hands**

Nunnally asks Suzaku to take off his gloves sometimes, to close his eyes and hold her hands like before so she can feel the smooth and steady grip of her knight in shining armor, but he always just smiles and pulls her close, eyes watering as she whispers all the ways the world betrayed her.

**#24 – taste**

They went berry-picking as a group, but it wasn't long before Lelouch and Suzaku found a warm patch of grass to lie in and eat raspberries then kiss the sunbaked sweetness from each other's lips.

**#25 – devotion**

His arms shook a he pointed his gun at the man who came the closest to understanding him, screaming, "Your existence is a mistake!" because he couldn't defend his ideal without shooting it through the heart.

**#26 – forever**

"Lelouch…do you promise we'll fix the world one day?"

**#27 – blood**

The red stain was washed off the mask a long time ago, but he still feels the handprint searing into his cheek every time he wears it, ubiquitous and unforgiving—and when he takes it off, it's infinitely worse because he can see that it isn't really there.

**#28 – sickness**

"Don't be ridiculous," Lelouch began, "you'll get sick, too, and then I'll—" but Suzaku cut him off with a gentle kiss to his chapped lips, falling asleep with his arms around his waist and a mumbled, "Worth it."

**#29 – melody**

Lelouch only knew him as the guy with the big smile that rode the same empty bus every day and sang along to the cheesy top 40 pop songs in his rough-around-the-edges but admittedly kind of intriguing voice—until he convinced him to join in for a performance of "Call Me Maybe" and they somehow wound up kissing on the steps of a fountain that glowed so brightly it put the stars to shame.

**#30 – star**

When Suzaku takes off his new uniform every night, he can no longer hide from himself and so tries instead to hide from the stars, closing all the curtains of his grand, empty room and eventually fading from consciousness with the memory of when he begged for their judgment instead of their forgiveness leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.

**#31 – home**

Even now, when he hears "Let's go home," behind his eyelids flashes an endless summer filled with the brightest stars in the universe and the green-eyed, hope-filled boy who believed in every last one.

**#32 – confusion**

Suzaku was puzzling for a good ten minutes over the history lecture that for some reason was being delivered in rapid-fire French before he realized he was in the wrong class, but catching the gaze of the purple-eyed professor as the language of romance poured from his lips in beautiful, meaningless gibberish, he suddenly didn't feel very much like finding the right one.

**#33 – fear**

"You can't be afraid now," he tells his king in a voice harder and more barren than obsidian, turning away before he could see the concern hidden in his green eyes.

**#34 – lightning/thunder**

"Is something wrong?" Nunnally mumbled sleepily while the storm raged outside their shack on the Kururugi estate, but Lelouch just smiled gently from the top bunk and whispered, "No, go back to sleep," as his fingers curled tighter around the hand of the trembling boy curled beside him.

**#35 – bonds**

They were tied from the moment they existed by a golden thread that connected their wrists—it could stretch from one end of the universe to the other a hundred times and they'd still manage to untangle it—so even though Suzaku sleeps alone now and bears the future of the world on his shoulders, he always knows where he's going.

**#36 – market**

Lelouch wasn't allowed to go with them when Shirley and Euphy took Suzaku to the mall to try on prom dresses, of course, but they texted him pictures of all the ones they didn't go with so that when he showed up in a long, flowing number that was a deep green almost as stunning as his eyes, Lelouch genuinely smiled harder than he ever had in his life.

**#37 – technology**

The sun was setting in one sky while it rose in the other, but Suzaku's smile, grainy and pixelated though it was on Lelouch's computer screen every night, never failed to soothe the ache behind his eyes.

**#38 – gift**

Lelouch's grave wasn't exactly a popular place, but somehow the grass always seemed to trim itself, the weeds politely stayed away, and a bouquet of rain lilies and yellow roses found its way to the base of the tombstone week after week.

**#39 – smile**

Sometimes, Suzaku wakes up early in the morning, when the sun hasn't risen and the air is too heavy to breathe, and his lungs start to collapse before he sees Lelouch in the grey non-light, his face smoother and brighter than the rest of the stars and his lips curving upward, so slightly and gently, in a way that even he couldn't coax out in the daylight, and he drifts off to sleep again with a sigh and the first rays of sun on his lips.

**#40 – innocence**

"But Lelouch and I…we can change the world, together."

**#41 – completion**

He tumbled from his throne at the hands of his soul mate, fading into oblivion on a cross of his own tainted blood with a smile on his face as his brilliant and divine star-crossed arc drew to an ugly close.

**#42 – clouds**

For a while, Suzaku wondered angrily every day why the sky was still so clear and blue after he was gone—but looking at Nunnally and Kallen and Ohgi and everyone else who was stepping boldly into the future, he discovered quickly that he didn't really want a world where the sun was always covered.

**#43 – sky**

Suzaku always took comfort in the fact that the sky never changed, that his little ten-year-old self was wishing on the same stars that scorned him now, until Lelouch breathed his life into it and shattered the ceiling he knew into millions of pieces and he realized: _This is your world now, and I'm going to defend it. _

**#44 – heaven**

They smiled, long-empty hands brushing against each other in fleeting moments of intimacy as they came to realize, "Together we can do anything."

**#45 – hell**

"_Live_!"

**#46 – sun**

They lay on a hill after class let out, sitting together even in silence to make up for lost time until Suzaku glanced over and saw that Lelouch had drifted off to sleep, his face more peaceful and childlike than it was even back then, and his own expression softened until it was warmer than the grass around them as he whispered, "I'm glad I found you."

**#47 – moon**

But when the stars came out that night and he gripped the cold metal controls of his Lancelot and flew towards the man that was causing everything to crumble to the ground, all he could do was scream, "The world doesn't want you!"

**#48 – waves**

Lelouch only agreed to go to the beach if he could sit under an umbrella and ignore everything, so when Suzaku lifted him up bridal style and threw him into the ocean he was understandably pretty miffed, but then they spent the rest of the day floating on their backs and stealing kisses that tasted like sunshine and sea foam, bobbing along to the rhythm of the sea until he decided that maybe the beach wasn't so bad after all.

**#49 – hair**

Lelouch always complained about the permanent layer of cat fur that coated their entire apartment ("It's impossible that the thing still has any left on its body!") but at night when Suzaku would invite Arthur onto the bed and inevitably fall asleep with him curled in the crook of his legs, he would just heave a dramatic sigh and mumble, "Just for tonight."

**#50 – supernova**

He spent months gathering all the world's darkness to a cloud above his throne so that for a single, brief moment at the hands of his lover he could outshine even the expansion of the heavens.

* * *

_**Notes:**_ next up is going to be lelouch and c.c.!


	2. BETA SET: Lelouch & CC

**#01 – walking**

She's always moving now, never settling in one place for too long (this new world has no need for a witch whose only gift is sin, after all) but no matter how much her feet ache, her heartbeat will never hurt again.

**#02 – waltz**

Their eyes stayed locked as they swept across the empty ballroom floor, twirling in time with a song that existed inside their heads until she smirked and dipped him so low that he lost his balance entirely.

**#03 – wishes**

"Thank you," she whispers as her empty hand curls into a fist.

**#04 – wonder**

The dawn glowed with a pink that was softer than she ever remembered it to be as she lay in his bed, clutching her chest with one hand and whispering through a humorless smile, "It's been such a long time…"

**#05 – worry**

"_Don't die,"_ were the foolish and redundant words of a hopeless romantic—"But I'd say it again," he mused aloud to himself, smirking and shaking his head, "for if that's what I've become, it certainly was not because of you."

**#06 – whimsy**

She liked to talk him into pointless clichés like eating pizza on the roof under the stars just so she could say she had, and even though he maintained his scowl the entire time, his quiet little sighs told her how pleased he really was—but she never said anything more than, "What lackluster protagonist showings, Lelouch."

**#07 – waste/wasteland**

Her body was a battleground that took beating after beating but somehow still grew flowers that were stronger and more beautiful than before, and when he touched it, held her hands in his own and caressed her cheeks, she wasn't angry that she had no scars or wrinkles or bruises to show anymore.

**#08 – whiskey and rum**

Lelouch always insisted that the only kind of alcohol that suited him was a single glass of red wine, and after giving him a single glass of just about anything else, C.C. was pretty sure she'd figured out why—and before she took his phone away, so had Kallen, and Shirley, and Suzaku…

**#09 – war**

Lelouch thought he'd won when she stopped reaching over to change the radio station—until the next day, that is, when he put the key in the ignition and found the trashy top 40 pop station blaring so loud the car shook and she just smiled innocently, yelling over Kallen and Suzaku's whooping laughter, "Hmm, you didn't seem the type."

**#10 – weddings**

"When do you think _they're_ going to get married?" Kallen whispered to Suzaku, looking on in awe as Lelouch and C.C. spent yet another of their friends' weddings in a corner with a specially-ordered pizza and a bottle of the hotel's finest cabernet, but he just grimaced and answered, "Hopefully never."

**#11 – birthday**

"I've long since forgotten it; a celebration of life is meaningless for someone like me," she insists, and when the small, elegant package appears on her pillow on the anniversary of the day they first met, she doesn't open it—but she can't stop herself from taking it, saving it, and bringing it back out every now and then to indulge herself in a quiet "Thank you."

**#12 – blessing**

She smiles to herself every time she lies down in the grass beside his grave, resisting the urge to laugh as her clean hands brush the grime from his tombstone because there's no one else left to do it.

**#13 – bias**

He used all of his willpower to pretend he wasn't trudging ten minutes out of his way to the same coffee shop every day just to catch a glimpse of her—and for her part, she eventually leaned over and told him that she might be willing to keep pretending she hadn't noticed.

**#14 – burning**

His palms were scorched as he grasped her cheeks in both hands and tilted her head back up, but he just smiled and leaned his forehead on hers, whispering, "I'll be a sinner, too."

**#15 – breathing**

She was always fascinated with her own breath, the way her cursed lungs continued to heave and drag down gulp after gulp of air even as she begged them not to—but when she drew oxygen from his lungs, the expansion of her chest suddenly seemed effortless for the first time she could remember.

**#16 – breaking**

He sank to his knees before the prospect of the oceans of innocent blood he would inevitably spill, hanging his head lower than the rays of the sinking sun—and it was her hands, soft and steady and ancient, that grasped his own and pulled him back into the light before it dipped completely behind the horizon.

**#17 – belief**

On the anniversary of the demon king's great fall from the heights of tyranny, when the streets are alive with jubilee and freedom and relief, a single figure kneels before an altar, silent, smiling, and alone.

**#18 – balloon**

"If you _insist_, I'll win a prize for you," Lelouch declared, hefting the proffered dart as C.C. raised an eyebrow, but five minutes and two more dollars later it was she who handed him the oversized teddy bear and noted with a pointed smirk the embarrassed blush that dusted his cheeks.

**#19 – balcony**

The stars were softer than the sun, he thought, observing the way the moonlight pooled along her neck as her head rested in his lap and his cheek on his hand, and the night suited her best up close.

**#20 – bane**

"I despise selfish men," she declared as she stretched her feet across his lap, to which he simply raised an eyebrow and replied with a noncommittal, "Hmm," not needing to look up from his newspaper to know that she was smiling.

**#21 – quiet**

She didn't blame him for spending his final night with the man who was his fate, but the silence that weighed her to the bed was so heavy that she still feels it in her lungs every time she takes a breath.

**#22 – quirks**

"You're so bony it's a wonder you haven't poked a hole through the sheets," C.C. says as she shifts beneath the covers to wrap her arms around Lelouch's waist, to which he just smirks, closes his eyes, and murmurs, "And your feet are colder than snow," before they both drift off to sleep with the barest traces of smiles on their lips.

**#23 – question**

It started to flutter just behind her lips even when she didn't want it to, but it was okay this time because she no longer had a human heart to distort it with: _Do you love me?_

**#24 – quarrel**

It may have been Lelouch's apartment, but whenever they got into a fight just before bed, _he_ was always the one sleeping on the couch that night—and when he woke up there would be a cup of coffee on the table that was _much_ too sweet next to a note reminding him to "be less bitter—it's not very attractive."

**#25 – quitting**

"I no longer wish for anything," she'll say, smiling slightly, but then Suzaku will shake his head and respond, "You're lying again," as he turns away, and her grin will just get bigger.

**#26 – jump**

"A promise for the future is the strongest bond two humans can form," she would remind him in earnest, and of course he would scoff and reply, "Then it's a good thing neither of us will ever be human again," but that night, it was he who fell asleep first.

**#27 – jester**

The first time Lelouch walked in on her leading a meeting whose purpose seemed only to air grievances about his most grating habits ("And has anyone else noticed the way he pretends to hate cats but then steals everyone's turn with Arthur?") definitely wasn't the last, although she very unenergetically denied doing it on purpose.

**#28 – jousting**

The winner of the match, of course, was to become a part of the king's personal entourage, so when the mysterious knight removed their helmet and the long, unmistakable green locks of the kingdom's scorned and most wanted sorceress flowed from its depths, everyone present leapt to their feet—save the king, that is, who simply held up a placating hand, his gaze (now alight with curiosity) never cutting from her amused golden eyes.

**#29 – jewel**

He cupped her cheeks in his hands, gently pressing his lips to her forehead and memorizing the precious taste of her skin as he allowed the swell of his emotions travel to her fingertips from his heartbeat.

**#30 – just**

She clasped her hands while divine light poured through the rosy glass of the cathedral's windows and split into distinct colors, pausing to wonder why it wasn't burning her skin as she sat in perfect, selfish stillness and whispered her apology to the man who offered his life to cleanse a witch.

**#31 – smirk**

So he might've vaguely wondered last night when he stumbled through the window why Kallen's apartment was suddenly so big, and why it was so clean, and maybe when exactly she got a cat—but he didn't really come up with an answer until the next morning when the first thing his bleary, throbbing eyes brought into focus was that small, amused smile as the stranger parted her lips to say, "So Sleeping Beauty is still alive."

**#32 – sorrow**

It wasn't often, but sometimes she woke up in the earliest hours of the morning with tears still drying on the edges of her eyes to find his arms gently draped around her, and before she could utter a word he would murmur, "A burden shared is a burden halved."

**#33 – stupidity**

"But I don't fear being alone."

**#34 – serenade**

Lelouch decided not to go into hiding on Valentine's Day, mostly because he underestimated the student council's ability to fit a grand piano in a stairwell and C.C.'s knowledge when it came to 80s power ballads.

**#35 – sarcasm**

"Is that what you'd call flirting?" Nunnally asked, tilting her head to the side as Lelouch answered, "She's too cold for anything of the sort," at the same time that C.C., without looking up from her magazine, said, "Yes."

**#36 – sordid**

"You don't mind tainting your name with a that of a witch?" she asks as she slides off his mask, her eyebrows arching slightly, but he just smirks and informs her that "You can't bloody the hands of a man who already resolved to do so himself."

**#37 – soliloquy**

"Hey, I'm glad you existed, you know…that's at least one person, so don't be afraid; I think you were put here just for me, to be what my heart needed most even when I didn't know it—but _you_ knew it, and I do now, so don't be scared…"

**#38 – sojourn**

In those rare moments when she sits on a hill and lets the wind wrap its cold arms around her, when the heavens crash into the grass and nearly tear the world apart to give her a glimpse of the unreachable—that's when she can admit that it hurts to breathe in.

**#39 – share**

"Will you call me by my name, just once?"

**#40 – solitary**

"I'm afraid of living in a world without you."

**#41 – nowhere**

Her existence was defined by absence—her soul, her heart, her very self—but even in her own plane of nothing, she felt his hand grip hers.

**#42 – neutral**

Unreadable gaze met unreadable gaze like the calm before a storm, confusing their intentions in smirks that hid behind their cards as the bets slowly piled up and their desire to best each other reached a crescendo that drowned out all the other players in a crackling storm of tension—until she set down a winning hand and without even cracking a smile declared, "I thought you'd have a more interesting tell, Lelouch."

**#43 – nuance**

"You're the one he trusted," she would say with a flicker of amusement in her voice as she drew her fingers through Suzaku's curly brown hair, but he would just flash a wry smile and respond, "Yes, but _you're_ the one he told the truth."

**#44 – near**

His sword he held at a distance and pointed away, towards his enemies—but his shield he kept close, clung to and cherished and took shelter behind, until he'd forgotten the shape of his hand when it wasn't holding hers.

**#45 – natural**

The first time she reached over to grab his hand, his voice faltered mid-order and when he glanced sharply in her direction, the slight smirk on her face told him that had been her goal—so he moved on and it wasn't until much later when she complained about his gloves being "far too thin to mask the boniness of his hands" that he realized he hadn't ever let go.

**#46 – horizon**

They sat in silence, leaning back to back as they watched the sun set, and when all the light had dissipated into the atmosphere and the sky and the earth ran together in an indistinguishable blur of shadow and star and absence, they still said nothing, but her cold hand did reach over to cover his own.

**#47 – valiant**

Lelouch glowered bitterly as he dropped his coat to the ground so that C.C. would be able to step over a puddle, so she just smirked and draped her own sweater over his shoulders as she swept past.

**#48 – virtuous**

"You were right," she whispered, rubbing together hands that were as clean and soft as ever before, "but I never asked you to fix anything for me."

**#49 – victory**

_I hold your sins, too, you know,_ he thinks as the corners of his lips curl into a faint smile and his eyes finally flutter closed, _and that's what you should have wanted._

**#50 – defeat**

"You're such a selfish man," she sighs as she lies in the grass and watches the clouds float by, "and I didn't deserve you."

* * *

_Notes:_ suzaku and euphy coming up next!


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